and so having nothing to occupy them and living in every dreamed-of luxury, they get nerves instead.  But I think it is because they never have nice young men to play with, everyone being busy working down town in the day time.  We are told that even when the husbands do come home before dinner they are too tired to talk much, and as I said before nearly all the men, married or single, make you feel as good as gold, so it is no wonder such numbers of beautiful Americans come to Europe.  I am quite sure if we had to lead their life we would turn into the most awful creatures.  It is greatly to their credit they remain so nice.

When you can get one or two alone to have a connected conversation they are perfectly charming, and often very cultivated, and nearly always knowing about music; but sometimes, supposing one is discussing a phaze of the Renaissance, say, they will suddenly speak of something as belonging to it of quite another period, and you feel perfectly nonplussed, it seems so remarkable with the clever things they have just said they can make such mistakes.  Perhaps it’s that they do not study any one subject very deeply.

One thing is noticeable and nice.  The conversations everywhere are all absolutely “jeune fille”; never anything the least “risque,” though it is often amusing.

Among the “smart set” (do forgive this awful term, Mamma, but I mean by that the ones who are “in the swim” and whose society is the goal of the other’s desire:  I don’t know what else to call them) they don’t often tell you about the Mayflower and their ancestors; though on Wednesday a frightfully rich person who has only lately been admitted into this inner circle because her daughters have both married foreign Princes, said to me, she loved the English, and was indeed English herself and some distant connection of our King, being descended from Queen Elizabeth!!!  It was rather unfortunate her having pitched upon our Virgin Queen, wasn’t it, Mamma!?  But perhaps as she had rather an Italian look it was the affair of the Venetian attache, and when I suggested that to her, she gazed at me blankly and said, “Why, no, there never has been any side-tracking in our family; we’ve always been virtuous and always shall be.”

Now that you know, generally, what a luncheon is, I must tell you of the particular one at Mrs. Van Brounker-Courtfield’s.  She is the dearest old lady you ever met, Mamma—­witty and quaint and downright, with an immense chic—­grey hair brushed up into the most elaborate coiffure, jet black eyes with the wickedest twinkle in them, and a strong cleft in a double chin.  She is rather stout but has Paris clothes and perfect jewels.  She is not a bit like English old ladies, sticking to their hideous early Victorian settings for their diamonds; hers are the very latest, and although she is seventy-eight, she crosses the ocean twice a year to have her frocks fitted, and see what is going on.

She was of a real old Southern family, before the war, very rich and aristocratic.  She, of course, never mentions the Mayflower or the cavaliers, but you can read all about her ancestors in any history of America.  She has such a strong sense of humour and the fitness of things, that she has adapted herself to the present, instead of remaining aloof and going to the wall as she told me so many of her friends and relations did.